Yamaha CL Series setting new standards in Broadcast with Australian Radio Network and Sound On Stage
To celebrate the one millionth digital radio listener in Sydney, all major radio networks recently banded together for a special simultaneous outside broadcast of their morning programmes from Fleet Park, The Rocks. With food and giveaways for the public, the event was a carnival for the listeners and a technical minefield for the broadcasters.
The Australian Radio Network was responsible for no less than three stations; WSFM, Mix 106.5 and The Edge 96.1. Tasked with managing the complex outside broadcast audio requirements of each station centrally, they approached Sound on Stage and Yamaha for a professional solution.
The audio requirements for each of the three stations included multiple presenter and guest microphones, roving wireless mics that needed to be able to switch stations on the fly, multiple programme and talkback feeds across the production team, multiple monitoring points, and of course feeds to broadcast.
Yamaha Commercial Audio’s Mark Condon suggested the new Yamaha CL5 digital mixing system as the easiest way to handle all three stations requirements simultaneously.
The scalable CL5 system with its remote I/O modules and 32 customisable faders is capable of mixing 72 mono and 8 stereo input channels simultaneously. 32 busses plus Stereo and Mono easily covered ARN’s output and monitoring requirements. Built-in Dante connectivity allowed simple and quick network connection to an O1V 96i digital mixer handling the local FOH PA at each tent.
The ease of use of the CL’s industry standard Centralogic control system combined with the new digital channel display and Custom Fader Banks meant navigating the mix of three separate stations from one central location was a breeze.
Mark Condon from Yamaha had this to say after operating the event:
“The Custom Fader layout of the CL5 was designed specifically for this kind of operation. It gives the engineer the flexibility to address their specific needs on any given show. For this event, three separate 8 channel fader banks dedicated to each station meant inputs were always on the top layer. The Centralogic fader bank was used to switch between each station’s bus outputs. With all ins and outs digitally labelled and colour coded, switching wireless mics between stations on the fly was simple. You just couldn’t get lost.”
Engineer Joel Sutton from ARN had the following to say after the packdown:
“Just wanted to give huge thanks for SOS and Yamaha’s hard work and attention to detail on this event. Once again, our teams had only good things to say. I am very happy with the way everything went off on the day. The CL5 was very impressive and handled the complex requirements with ease!”